Johnny Angel Tennis

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Exercise and Appetite

10/11/12 19:03

Exercise may actually suppress your appetite, two new studies suggest
When most people finish a hard workout, they want
a reward ­ possibly a sandwich, or some pancakes,
or maybe even a burger and fries. What they don’t want? To not eat anything.
And yet, a few recent studies found that moderate
intensity aerobic training could actually
decrease your appetite or increase your feelings
of fullness or satiety. Strange, right? Previous
research has shown that people who exercise often
reward themselves with food, increasing overall
calorie consumption, and often sabotaging their
weight loss goals. So, what gives?
“Exercise can definitely suppress hunger,” says
Barry Braun, director of the Energy Metabolism
Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, who has co-authored multiple studies on
the subject. How, why, and for how long afterward
is something researchers are still working out.
They do know that workouts trigger changes in the
hunger hormone ghrelin and the satiety hormones,
PYY and GLP-1 ­ though research has yet to establish the exact relationship.
A recent study published in the journal
Metabolism found that perceived fullness ­ both
while fasting and after eating ­ was higher among
participants after 12 weeks of aerobic training,
but not after resistance training for the same
amount of time. And another study out of Brigham
Young University revealed that women appeared to
be less interested in food on mornings when they
walked on a treadmill for 45 minutes than on days they didn’t.